This invention is related to hardware for mounting wall cabinets and the like to space-dividing wall panels of a type employed in open-office systems and more particularly to self-locking mounting clip hardware for mounting wall cabinets and the like to the slotted standards employed in such systems.
In recent years there has been an increase in popularity of the concept of open office planning which utilizes free-standing partition systems for defining various office and work station areas. Almost all of the manufacturers of these type systems provide for the direct mounting of office accessories such as cabinets, shelves, work surfaces and the like directly to the free-standing partition or wall. Many of these systems employ what is known in the trade as a slotted standard as a part of the wall panel or partition to serve as a mounting vehicle for such accessories. The slotted standard is generally a vertical steel channel which extends over the entire vertical dimension of the panel and has therein a plurality of equidistantly spaced, vertically aligned slots which are adapted to receive a plurality of hook-shaped or T-shaped connector elements which extend from the back surface of the accessory to be mounted to the wall panel. Illustrations of the hook-type connector may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,877,191 for Connector Assembly and Support Post, and the T-shaped connector is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 28,994 for Over the Cabinet Door Assembly.
It will be readily apparent that heavy accessories such as cabinets, sometimes loaded with heavy materials, or work surfaces and bookshelves are retained in their mounted position only by virtue of the vertical load provided by the accessory itself. It should be equally apparent that inadvertent jarring or accidental removal of the hook-shaped or T-shaped connectors from the slotted standard could result in a serious accident. Another problem with this type of mounting system can be illustrated with reference to the above-cited U.S. Pat. No. Re. 28,994 which discloses a backless wall-mounted cabinet which may obviously incorporate a provision for locking the cabinet door. The security of such a locked cabinet is clearly fictitious in that the cabinet can be readily removed from the wall and entered from the rear regardless of the locked door. Providing a locking mechanism in connection with the hook-shaped or T-shaped connector elements in order that any wall-mounted accessory can have its mounting hooks locked into the slotted standard and which locking mechanism can be released only through positive action as opposed to inadvertent actuation, can eliminate the hazards of such wall-mounted accessories accidentally falling from the wall. Additionally, providing that the cabinet must be entirely disassembled in order for the sidewalls to be removed from the slotted standard precludes the removal of the cabinet from the wall when the cabinet door is in a locked configuration.
Several different mechanisms have been disclosed for locking hook-shaped connectors into slotted standards. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,601,432 to Fenwick discloses a swingable latch-type member for this purpose but inadvertent removal of the latch would render the mounted accessory susceptible to being dislodged from the slotted standard. U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,254 to Bruce K. Boundy et al. for Mounting Clip Lock discloses a positive latching mechanism in which a two-part clip is employed and by varying the spacings of the two parts of the clip, positive locking results. Again, if the pin connector that holds the one portion of the locking clip in a fixed position is not in place, the cabinet is again susceptible of being inadvertently jostled loose from the slotted standard. U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,467 to Probst et al. for Structural Support System for Shelving discloses a system wherein all of the hook-shaped connectors are angularly disposed with respect to the support bracket and are constructed specifically to co-act with a slotted standard that is set at an angle with respect to the plane of the wall panel and theoretically cannot be removed from the slotted standard when the two support brackets are assembled to a shelf or the like. This particular configuration can only be utilized with the unusual angularly disposed slotted standard and is not compatible with a slotted standard lying in a plane parallel to the planar surface of the wall panel.